Medal of Honor: Single Player

We are all very familiar with the Medal of Honor series by now.  It’s a franchise that has had it’s ups and downs from the beginning.  The next installment is from EA Los Angeles, which are the ones responsible for the single player portion of the game.  The main story takes place in Afghanistan, as you play the role of four different characters.  Through most of the game you play as “Rabbit” who is a DEVGRU operator.  Throughout the rest of the game you will play as Delta Force sniper specialist, “Deuce”, Army Ranger Dante Adams, and Apache Gunner Brad Hawkins.  The story is really nothing special, it’s your typical war shooter that at times will have you in an all out gunfire, when other times taking a more stealthy approach while clearing out a particular village or saving one of your own.

Knock Knock

The gameplay on the other hand is a totally different matter.  It has everything your traditional shooter these days have.  While mixing in a little bit of its own.  If you’ve played the other top shooters in the genre, then you will be very familiar with how the controls work.  The guns feel like they should while your firing them, and the sound is amazing, which is one of the things that stuck out to me.  Another nice feature is the slide to cover mechanic, although at times it can cause you to slide pass your cover spot and leave you in the open for your enemies to take target practice at.

Visuals in Medal of Honor at times look great, while other instances will have you scratching your head.  The in-game graphics are pretty solid, but it has it’s fair share of texture pop-in.  There is a good amount of polish to everything, but sometimes things can look a little dated.  I guess what I’ am trying to say is that even though the game looks good, it doesn’t push any limits, nor does it compare with it’s competition.

As you progress through the game, you will always be with other soldiers.  So you never really feel like you have to be the Rambo of the group.  Your team-mates do a good job at helping during battle sequences and even come in handy so much, that you can lay low and let them do most of the work.  The enemy A.I. is a different matter entirely.  This seems to be one of the most toughest things to get right for developers in games.  The A.I. is usually either terrible, or it is done exceptionally well.  Medal of Honor kind of sits right in the middle between the two.  At certain times you are left wondering what in the world is the enemy doing standing in the way of my bullets, and other instances do a pretty good job and laying low and sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

Overall, Medal of Honor is just another shooter.  It doesn’t really add anything new or exciting to the genre.  With that being said I did enjoy my overall experience with the single player.  But with the game clocking in around the 5 hour mark, I cannot recommend it being a buy.  It’s a great game to play over a rainy weekend, but the length of the campaign alone is not enough to spend $60.  With Call of Duty: Black Ops just around the corner, you may want to save your pennies for a couple more weeks.

[starreview tpl=46 style=’pumpkin’ size=’30’]